The Qingtian-Madrid Talent Incubator is launched on Dec 21. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

Qingtian county, located in the prefecture-level city of Lishui in East China's Zhejiang province, has a tradition of local people going abroad to chase business opportunities, which can be traced back 300 years.

In recent times, the county has been reaching out to these people, many of them very successful, as a strategic resource to help drive its economic development and upgrading.

To this end, the Qingtian Overseas Chinese Association and the Spanish Qingtian Community signed the Qingtian-Madrid Overseas Incubator Cooperation Agreement via video link on Dec 21.

That accord saw the launch of the Qingtian-Madrid Talent Incubator.

Under the agreement, the two sides will build an innovation and entrepreneurship platform  with coordination and interactions at home and abroad and help promote the high-quality upgrading and transformation of Qingtian.

It is estimated that at present, there are about 330,000 Qingtian people running businesses in more than 120 countries and regions. The county has also established overseas incubators in Frankfurt, Germany, Vienna, Austria and in Osaka, Japan.